Who?
by Rayet
Summary: Kakashi encounters an old... friend.


"Thanks again for the bandage," Kakashi told the pink-haired medic on the stool beside him, "though you know you needn't have worried for something so small."

Haruno Sakura scoffed. "It may look small, but it's deeper than you realise," she told him, eyeing the work she had done on his left bicep. It had been about an hour since their makeshift squad had arrived at the Fern Village, and dull red spots were appearing in the white cloth. "I really should have used some chakra on it."

"You know I wouldn't have sat still long enough for you to do that," Kakashi reminded her, crinkling his right eye and sipping his drink through his mask. "We'd still be out there, rather than in here celebrating such a _narrow_ victory."

The two ninjas, along with three other teammates Sakura had only met yesterday were currently celebrating their being alive and well in a bustling pub called "The Dove's Death." Sakura thought the name was a bit off-putting but Kakashi said he had been before, and had even bought her a drink to stop her complaining. As Kakashi said, it was a celebration. They had been sent on an A-rank mission with a team of five, suggesting that trouble lay ahead. Yet when they arrived, the group of bandits they had been sent to eliminate had already halved their numbers from fighting amongst themselves. Kakashi's arm had been the only real injury of the mission, and he was adamant that Sakura needn't waste her time on it.

"I can't believe how lucky we were!" Sakura said for the hundredth time. "I felt for sure we'd be laid up here for weeks, but we can leave tomorrow if we want."

Kakashi looked at her sideways. "Someone special you're rushing home to?" he enquired.

She sipped her drink before replying calmly. "Just someone called Renji Suzuki." Now it was her turn to look sideways for her ex-teacher's reaction.

"'Renji Suzuki?' who's he? He sounds old. Is he a ninja?" It took Kakashi a full fifteen seconds to notice the smile on his teammate's face. "Well? Who is this guy?"

"If I'm lucky, he's a particularly interesting surgery that Tsunade-sama said I could help with if I got back before his spleen exploded," she told him, smiling wider at his audible sigh of relief. "Honestly, you'd think I was still ten years old the way you worry."

Kakashi was about to reply with something nonchalant and witty when a mess of blonde curls obscured his vision.

"Kakashi!" someone squealed into his neck as he was embraced in an uncomfortable hug. Once the person moved back and he could see her properly, he gulped. The woman was tall, long-legged and beautiful. And she knew his name, which was always a bad sign.

"It's been so long since you visited the Fern Country! I was beginning to think you'd forgotten about me!" Kakashi wasn't sure why she had to yell everything, but it was starting to draw attention.

"You _haven't _forgotten me, have you?" the blonde asked in a way that suggested he better not have.

"Forgotten you? Of course not," Kakashi reassured her, using his charms whilst desperately trying to remember the woman's name. "How could I forget such a beautiful face?"

Sakura watched the back of the woman's head as she talked to Kakashi. Her hair was about as long as Ino's but the colour was more like Naruto's. Her legs were almost twice the length of a normal woman's, and Sakura would swear on her life that the tight blue dress she wore was really just a modified skirt. In short, she was gorgeous. But she was also rather drunk and coming on way too strong. She had faced formidable ninja before, people who could very really kill you with a glance. But this woman was a different kind of dangerous, and it was clear Kakashi didn't remember her at all, the _philanderer_. Sighing inwardly, she tapped the woman on the shoulder and extended her hand politely when she turned around.

"My name's Sakura," she told the woman, mentally scolding Kakashi for his pathological womanising. To not even remember a girl's name was just disgraceful.

The woman looked her over, deeming her pink hair and comparatively short legs non-threatening. "Mitsuko," she told her, shaking Sakura's hand with her perfectly-manicured one.

"Mitsuko?" Sakura repeated. "What a _striking _name," she said, looking at Kakashi with a raised eyebrow.

Sakura had just lost a lot of respect for him, and he knew it. He tried to look apologetic as 'Mistuko' put her hand on his shoulder like they were sweethearts.

"So Sakura, are you a close friend of Kakashi's?" she asked.

"Actually," Kakashi broke in, "she's just my medic. I haven't actually met her before today." He bit his lip at Sakura's expression of betrayal and Mitsuko's expression of relieved joy. He knew it was better for Sakura if the woman didn't think they were too close.

"Oh! That's nice then!" She said, now completely ignoring the other girl. Sakura kept her face carefully blank and turned back to face the bar. "Do you think your medic would mind if we went upstairs for a little first-aid of our own?" She winked in a way that would have broken lesser men.

Kakashi glanced over at Sakura, who was staring at the bar with apparent fascination.

"Mitsuko. I'm really sorry, but I actually can't go anywhere without my medic's supervision." He feigned regret almost too-easily, tilting his head toward his bandaged arm.

The blonde grabbed the arm in dismay, making Kakashi wince and Sakura turn her head so fast she cricked her neck.

"But- but it doesn't look that bad! Maybe if-"

"Sorry," Kakashi cut her off, staring over the woman's shoulder at the pink-haired medic, "but apparently it's deeper than it looks."


End file.
